Tour operators, portals see a jump in bookings around Jan 26 weekend

Lower airfares with demand for destinations like Puri, Puducherry and Gangtok spur online bookings

There has been a surge in bookings on online travel portals for the January 26 on the back of lower airfares with demand for destinations including Puri, Puducherry and Gangtok.

“Keen holiday planners are exploring interesting and offbeat destinations for the Republic Day weekend. On Cleartrip, we are seeing places like Pondicherry, Puri and Gangtok debut amongst the Top 10 destinations that Indians are visiting this January while destinations like Goa and Jaipur continue to be among the favourites. Advance purchase for this weekend has spiralled too. At Cleartrip, over 82 per cent people booked their travel for the Republic Day Long Weekend, over 30-days in advance. Interestingly, over 25 per cent of these bookings were made on Cleartrip Mobile,” said Samyukth Sridharan, president of Cleartrip.

Last week airlines led by Air India halved their fares across domestic network. Other airlines followed suit reducing fares. Lower fares has led to an uptick in holiday planning, said travel agents.

“Domestic and outbound tourism is on an upswing. Excluding Goa we are seeing 5-7% growth in inbound tourists. People are taking short trips to hill stations and destinations like Bangkok, Singapore and Sri Lanka are also popular,'' said Gour Kanjilal, executive director of Indian Association of Tour Operators.

“We are witnessing a huge spike in both planned and impulse flight bookings for the first long-weekend of the year. With a 165%  year-on-year growth in bookings for the period Jan 23rd – Jan 27th,  we expect more last-minute bookings in this week. Not surprisingly, Mobile continues to fuel growth for the online travel business. In this period, we have seen greater than 450% growth in mobile bookings compared to 100% growth on desktop. Higher bookings this year have also been contributed due to fall in fares compared to same period last year,'' said Ranjeet Oak, Senior Vice President-Flights, MakeMyTrip.

“Majority of bookings for the 26th January weekend are by families and young couples. Popular getaway destinations this year are Mahabaleshwar and Goa in the West, Jaipur and Goa out of Delhi, and Yercaud, Hampi, Thekkady, Coorg, and Pondicherry for travellers based in Chennai and Bangalore. The average budget of travel is between Rs. 2000-3000 per person.,'' Oak added.

Average-Fare	2014	2015	Difference
BLR-DEL	7,422	5,666	-24%
BOM-BLR	4,669	3,582	-23%
BOM-DEL	6,910	4,277	-38%
DEL-BOM	6,526	4,119	-37%
HYD-BOM	4,129	2,542	-38%
Note: BLR - Bengaluru, DEL- Delhi, BOM- Mumbai, HYD- Hyderabad
Source: MakemyTrip